{"id":100709,"date":"2025-05-21T15:59:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T19:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=100709"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:59:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T19:59:50","slug":"pirates-shuffle-rotation-mlodzinski-burrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/21\/pirates-shuffle-rotation-mlodzinski-burrows\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Shuffle Rotation by Calling Up Prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have sent starting pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mlodzca01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a> to Triple-A Indianapolis and recalled prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/burromi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Burrows<\/a>. Burrows is scheduled to start Thursday\u2019s game against the Milwaukee Brewers at PNC Park in Mlodzinski\u2019s place. The team made the move after Tuesday night\u2019s game and announced the news on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">We have recalled RHP Mike Burrows from Triple-A Indianapolis, and optioned RHP Carmen Mlodzinski to Triple-A Indianapolis following last night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/1925208971469570177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Pirates Send Down Mlodzinski, Call Up Burrows<\/h3>\n<p>Except for five appearances as an \u201copener,\u201d Mlodzinski pitched out of the bullpen in 2023 and 2024. As a rookie in 2023, he emerged as a reliable high-leverage option, posting a 2.25 ERA, 10 \u201cholds,\u201d and a save in 35 games. After last season, the Pirates and Mlodzinski mutually agreed to move him to the starting rotation. As a starter in 2025, he struggled to a 1-4 record, 5.67 ERA, and 1.613 WHIP.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to send Mlodzinski down is a curious one. He\u2019s pitched well the first time through the order, as demonstrated by his 2.67 ERA for the first three innings. He could have been kept with the big club to help an inconsistent bullpen. Furthermore, he\u2019s been a little better lately. In three games from April 30 to May 11, he\u2019s given up just four runs in 14 1\/3 innings. However, in his most recent game, he gave up four earned runs in 3 1\/3 innings in Philadelphia. The Pirates probably see that less as an aberration. The decision demonstrates the Pirates\u2019 belief that Mlodzinski can become a solid starter.<\/p>\n<p>With No. 1 prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=chandl002roy&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bubba Chandler<\/a> continuing to ply his trade at Indianapolis, Burrows wasn\u2019t the prospect pitcher that Pirates fans wanted to see, but he\u2019s the one who will step in for Mlodzinski. The right-handed Burrows, 25, is the Pirates&#8217; No. 15 prospect. He\u2019s kept pace with his more famous counterpart, Chandler, who <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/06\/pirates-spring-breakout-roster\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">started<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/14\/pirates-spring-breakout-game-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Spring Breakout Game<\/a> this season. At Indy, Burrows is 2-1 with a 2.51 ERA and 1.052 WHIP. Chandler has posted an identical 2-1 record with a 2.17 ERA and 1.125 WHIP.<\/p>\n<h3>Pirates Should Get Extended Look At Burrows<\/h3>\n<p>The Pirates gave Burrows a brief, one-game taste of the majors last season, when he gave up one earned run in 3 1\/3 innings in relief of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/skenepa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-21_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Skenes<\/a> at Yankee Stadium. He was with the Pirates <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/04\/24\/pirates-call-up-prospects-send-down-suwinski-roster-moves\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">earlier this season<\/a> without making an appearance. Presumably, he\u2019ll get a longer look this time around.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have sent starting pitcher Carmen Mlodzinski to Triple-A Indianapolis and recalled prospect Mike Burrows. Burrows is scheduled to start Thursday\u2019s game against the Milwaukee Brewers at PNC Park in Mlodzinski\u2019s place. The team made the move after Tuesday night\u2019s game and announced the news on Wednesday morning. &nbsp; We have recalled RHP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":100738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071,35],"tags":[4906,3632,28759,6371],"class_list":["post-100709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-bubba-chandler","tag-carmen-mlodzinski","tag-mike-burrows","tag-paul-skenes"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100709"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100740,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100709\/revisions\/100740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}